Reading the Classics discussion

Discuss part one of Lolita here.

so I am in chapter 12 and it is very interesting so far. A little awkward but still interesting. :D

I agree it is awkward. I am only on chapter 9, but so far it is just a pervert rambling on. Hopefully soon the actual story will begin. At this point I'm wondering why this is considered a classic. Of course there is still most of the book left...it could turn around.

Well it does get better. I agree at the beginning is a lot of rambling about nymphets but when the story begins it gets better! Maybe we should see the movie lol

I agree that it seems to be just a lot of rambling by a pervert about his nymphets. I am also wondering why this book is a classic and I am reading the annotated version which has an introduction and notes that explain a lot of things. However, even with these notes that explain Nabokov's use of word play among other things, it still comes down to a diary written by a pedophile.

yes, it does seem like a book written by a pedophile. I am just so amazed at Lolita hahaahha. She is so......crazy its scary because she is so young! lol

I am wondering if Humbert is exaggerating just how willing Lolita really is. In his mind he may be making Lolita more seductive than she really is to make himself feel better about how wrong it all is. He is an unreliable narrator in my opinion.

I agree with Jenn. It seems to me that Humbert would be making Lolita more of the seductress to try to almost justify what he did. Still, even if she did act a little bit like that and he is exaggerating, it is no reason for him to feel justified. She would only have been showing the natural curiousity that comes at that age which should not be taken advantage of by a much older man.

How old do you think you have to be to read this book? I'm 17 already but my mum thinks it's probably not a good idea for me to read it...

I would not reccommend you reading it just yet. Wait a few years. You aren't missing much in my opinion.

Jenn wrote: "I would not reccommend you reading it just yet. Wait a few years. You aren't missing much in my opinion."

Ok, i'll read other classic books then. Thanks for answering. xoxo Leonor

Don't take that advice. If you want to read it, go ahead and read it. You will find Lolita disagreeable only if you're extremely puritanical and are the type of person who wears farm dresses to school so boys don't see your pwivate pawts and won't kiss a boy until you're married. Read the book. Nabokov is one of the most brilliant authors. Don't let your mom's skewed view from a description pulled up on Google prevent you from reading this book.
If you still don't want to read this book, read any of Nabokov's other books.

I read and loved this book several months ago (don't worry I won't add any spoilers). The subject is uncomfortable and the characters unpleasent, but the writing is beautiful. I never warmed to Delores, even at the beginning when I tried to tell myself that she was just a child. I also had it on audio, read by Jeremy Irons. It's worth listening to if you can lay your hands on a copy.
Leonor - I think the book is suitable for you, my own 18 year old daughter read it and more or less took the same stance as I did myself. However, discuss it with your mother, rather than ignore her advice.

Thanks for the advice! I'm going to talk to my mum about it. It's probably better if I don't read it by her back. Xoxo Leonor

. wrote: "Don't take that advice. If you want to read it, go ahead and read it. You will find Lolita disagreeable only if you're extremely puritanical and are the type of person who wears farm dresses to sch..."

Really? Are you really going to say that I am extremely puritanical just because I find it inappropriate for a teenage girl to read a book about a pedophile who has a very indecent relationship with a twelve year old? I don't care how beautiful or wonderful the writing is. What it comes down to is the bare facts that the story itself is disgustingly inappropriate for a child (and yes, 17 years old is still a child emotionally and mentally and mom has every right to say what she should not read.).

And now I will get off my soapbox. And by the way, I rarely wore dresses, much less farm dresses, to school and I kissed my husband long before we got married. :)

In response to some above comments - the narrator is purposefully unreliable. I doubt Nabokov wrote the book to explain how beautiful it is to be attracted to children. I suggest reading this book with a more open mind in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the themes at work within this beautifully written novel. Thanks.

Jenn wrote: ". wrote: "Don't take that advice. If you want to read it, go ahead and read it. You will find Lolita disagreeable only if you're extremely puritanical and are the type of person who wears farm dres..."

I agree with you that the book is not appropriate for a teenager to read and she should respect what her mother wants her to do. But some teens are mature enough to handle it. It should be discussed between her and her mother. Anyway, how many 17 year olds really pay attention to what their mothers want them to do and how many 17 year olds would consider themselves still children emotionally and mentally. You certainly didn't! LOL

Jenn wrote: ". wrote: "Don't take that advice. If you want to read it, go ahead and read it. You will find Lolita disagreeable only if you're extremely puritanical and are the type of person who wears farm dres..."

I've just read Chaucer's Prologue to the Wife of Bath's tale - she was married when she was 12. I suggest that Leonor also shouldn't read The Canterbury Tales because it obviously involves tales of sex with minors. The bizarre thing is that there's *nothing* explicit in Lolita - especially compared to the stuff I read when I was 17, even if you compare it with stuff like the Thorn Birds, Shirley Conran or Jackie Collins. The problem is the subject matter. In a few months time and Leonor was 18, would everybody have a problem with her reading it then?

I think it's a stretch to condemn Leonor's mother just yet. I don't think that 17 is an ideal age to read Lolita either, and there can be many reasons for this beyond being a puritan.

Lolita is an extremely subtle book, and I'm not sure that many 17 year olds would be able to understand the subtleties. Personally, I think that the importance of reading a book at the right age can't be overemphasized, because IMO, a first reading has a power that rereadings cannot match. If a 17 year old asked my advice, I would say to wait until at least your early 30's, it's an age when you notice cracks in your own interpretation of things and can understand and deal with a narrator like Humbert.

I do think that the subject matter can distract people from looking beyond it, this is especially true for young people who haven't fully integrated sex into their everyday lives and gained some mature perspectives on it. You only have to remember back to middle school/high school days when the mention of the word "gay" (as in merry) or the mention of the word "rapier" caused kids to get distracted. The material doesn't have to be graphic to get a reaction.

I would probably advise Leonor to take her mother's advice and wait to read Lolita. There are so many wonderful classics that I think would be great reading for someone at seventeen. I remember so fondly the impact of books at that age, especially in the introduction of new ideas. I still say that 1984 by George Orwell is my favorite book because of the effect it had on me when I read it at 18.

If I was considering reading Lolita at 17 and my mother advised me not to read it, I would have just because she said that. And, quite frankly, I read some salacious stuff at 16 and I turned out all right.

I'd like to be the kind of mom that researches the book, tells or shows my teenager what I found, and lets my teen decide what's right for him/her.

I think given the times we are living in, if the worst your child does is read some unfavorable books then you should consider yourself very fortunate.

This book was an option for me to read in my AP literature class in high school. I read it and turned out okay. I think I even wrote an essay on it for the AP examinations. I grasped the subtleties and learned from it. Lolita is a beautifully written book and I now consider it one of my favorites. As long as Leonor understands that the subject matter is somewhat mature I would highly recommend reading it.

Mickey wrote: "I think it's a stretch to condemn Leonor's mother just yet. I don't think that 17 is an ideal age to read Lolita either, and there can be many reasons for this beyond being a puritan.

Lolita is ..."

I agree with you that the mother shouldn't be put down for her opinion.

Actually, though, I do think that a seventeen-year-old would be able to read this novel and catch the subtleties. I think that it is just a matter of that individual's reading maturity. For instance, right now I am reading "Great Expectations," and Dickens' language isn't too hard for me to grasp. That is most likely because I have already consumed "The Decameron," "Goethe's Faust," as well as other challenging pieces of literature. In short, I think that it all just depends on the reader.

I would also argue that there one could get more out of any novel when they are older, including the ones deemed as suitable for this individual's age. That shouldn't stop anyone from reading a book if they wish to.

It's been my personal experience that an initial reading when you are too young to understand can ruin a great book. For instance, I read Anna Karenina when I was 18, and now I wish I had waited, because I knew nothing of marriages and relationships at the time, so most of the it flew right over my head. It's not a question of intelligence or reading ability. (I scored in the top fifth percentile on the ACT's in the reading section that year.) I read the big two of Dostoyevsky's (Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov) not long after, and I don't think it's a coincidence that my favorite novel by him turned out to be Demons, which I read after I studied Russian history in college.

I think that there are themes that will resonate at certain ages. For instance, in high school, I was assigned to read Babbit by Sinclair Lewis. It's about a man going through a mid-life crisis. I couldn't relate and the choices facing him didn't interest me.

I don't think that Lolita is a young person's book. Not because it's salacious, although I think the sex could be a problem that some kids won't see past.

Some novels that I think would be good for young adults would be One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which deals with individuality and responsibility towards others or 1984 which deals with dissent and conformity. I didn't recommend Great Expectations because I thought it was easy, just that the story of growing up is something that kids could relate to personally.

I understand that no matter what age people are at, they are individuals. Knowing that someone is 17 or 36 doesn't tell you much about who they are. Some 17 year olds might be incredibly mature. I think they would be a small minority, though, and I always think that it's better to err on the side of caution. There's only one Lolita, and you'll only read it for the first time once.

I don't think it's a question of "stopping someone from reading a book if they wish to". She asked for advice, and my advice would be to wait. Her mother, who knows her well, is also advising her to wait as well. I think waiting will give her time to come to the book as a match for the narrator.

Mickey wrote: "It's been my personal experience that an initial reading when you are too young to understand can ruin a great book. For instance, I read Anna Karenina when I was 18, and now I wish I had waited, b..."

I also was in an advanced English class in High school with high grades in reading, but I don't think that I would have been mature enough to read Lolita at age 17. I was not a prude. I was just a normal 17 year old girl for that time in my area (Boston). I was very street smart because I had to be but there were still some things that I probably wouldn't have picked up on. I think that it is up to Leonor and her mother, who knows her better than we do, to make the decision. After taking all our advice into consideration and discussing it with her mother, I am sure she will decide what is best for her.

Leonor wrote: "How old do you think you have to be to read this book? I'm 17 already but my mum thinks it's probably not a good idea for me to read it..."

You can read whatever you want whenever you want. I wasn't much older than you when I read Lolita and I loved it.

Jenn wrote: ". wrote: "Don't take that advice. If you want to read it, go ahead and read it. You will find Lolita disagreeable only if you're extremely puritanical and are the type of person who wears farm dres..."

Seventeen year olds are NOT children. God, when I was that age I hated it when people treated me like a child. I read Lolita when I was about that age (I may have been eighteen, but it wasn't long after graduating high school). My roommate read it when she was even younger.

Kelsi wrote: "This book was an option for me to read in my AP literature class in high school. I read it and turned out okay. I think I even wrote an essay on it for the AP examinations. I grasped the subtletie..."

Exactly. I don't understand why these fuddie duddies think young people like us are incapable of grasping nuance and subtlety. I guess either they've forgotten what it's like to be young or they took longer than we did to develop the capacity to understand great literature? There's nothing wrong with that at all, everyone develops at different rates, but one person's experience is not identical to all of ours. Worst case scenario, the young woman doesn't get the book and she re-reads it when she's older. That happened to me with Animal Farm.

Seventeen year olds are definitely not children, I had read way more sexually explicit books than Lolita by the time I was that age. In fact Lolita isn't sexually explicit at all, as it's been stated, it's all really subtle. Especially compared to something like Anne Rice for example; there is NOTHING subtle about her homosexual vampires, lol.

I was pretty repulsed by all the characters in Lolita, even Lolita herself; but no one should let the fact that the book is about a pedophile stop them from reading it. It was a very captivating read. Just takes a bit of open mindedness.

Leonor wrote: "How old do you think you have to be to read this book? I'm 17 already but my mum thinks it's probably not a good idea for me to read it..."

Parts of the book and the book overall can be disturbing. If your mom doesn't think it's a good idea for you to read the book at 17, there's probably never an age she'd be okay with you reading it. Go ahead and read it, I say, it's a fantastically written novel. Nabokov is one of my favorites with words. I also don't think it's any less disturbing than, say, the relationship dynamic in Twilight, so screw it and read one of my favorites of all time :)

Postsocratic wrote: "Jenn wrote: ". wrote: "Don't take that advice. If you want to read it, go ahead and read it. You will find Lolita disagreeable only if you're extremely puritanical and are the type of person who we..."

I'm sorry if I have offended you or anyone else with my opinions on the matter. Leonor asked my advice and I told her how I honestly feel. As a high school teacher, I can agree that 17 year olds are not children, but the majority of them still act that way at times. In my Adolescent Psychology class in college, I learned that the mental and emotional part of the brain is not fully developed until mid-twenties. Something to think about.
That being said, many older teens would be able to read Lolita and see past the actual story to the nuances and subtle meanings within the writing. Most probably can't. Based on this, I would still advise Leonor to wait, or at least talk to her mother about why she feels it shouldn't be read. I agree with Nevie who said that parts of the book can be disturbing, and I don't think I am "puritanical" or a "fuddie duddie" because I had a hard time getting through some of those disturbing parts and wouldn't recommend it to a teen.
On a side note, just because a story isn't sexually explicit doesn't mean it isn't still something too mature for teens.

Again, my apologies for offending anyone.

This discussion of whether Lolita is a good fit read/ appropriate for a 17 year old girl has brought up some interesting ideas and viewpoints. Although I think there is one issue that people are giving too much importance to when viewing other people's (opposing) ideas: the idea that the objections to the 17 year old reading Lolita is based on prudishness.

I've noticed this as a trend with other books as well. I'm thinking specifically of Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Most of the discussions that I've seen about it spend time creating this false image of non-fans based solely on their squeamishness of the depictions of sexual taboos. This is followed by self-congratulatory back-patting about one's own open-mindedness. I find this a reduction of the book to a blanket statement (concerning one's own superiority to others, based on a non-reaction to situations that probably should cause a reaction and were created to cause one). I suppose another example of this would be the book American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, although I haven't read that book, so I don't read discussions on it, but I think I'm probably on safe ground imagining similar discussions.

If a book is sexually explicit (which Lolita isn't) or deals with issues that are considered sexually taboo, it seems now to fall under a special category where any criticism or reaction is bound to be met with cries and accusations of puritanism. The book loses any other facet except for that issue for both the opponents of the book and its supporters.

Some people have come here with the argument that to read sexually explicit material or depictions of sexual taboos will not damage a 17 year old, but that is not all Lolita is. I read plenty of explicit or questionable literature when I was younger than 17. (My parents were not readers, so they never took any interest in my reading.) If a 17 year old is longing for such books, there are plenty to choose from. I think Middlesex would be a great book to read, but my objections about a 17 year old reading Lolita (and I only speak for myself here) has to do with the fact that most 17 year olds will not understand the story fully. Lolita is a complex, adult story.

I am on Chapter 20 and I think that the book is disturbing and hilarious. Disturbing because of the content, and hilarious in its wordplay and wit. There is much for an older teen to learn from the tale of Hummy, Mummy and Dolly. (OMG Nabokov is rubbing off. *no pun intended*) Bottom line for Leonor: if your mom said "no" and you are still being claimed on income taxes, do what she says. When you go to college though, all bets are off, and you'll be left to your own judgment--judgment that reading and discussing good literature, no matter how uncomfortable or inappropriate, will deepen beyond anything your mother or even you can imagine. That's its purpose.

Just like "bad" television or music, what makes it bad is when it becomes mindlessly ingrained. What can make even a song like Li'l Wayne's "Every Girl" good, is discussing both its implausibility and its misogynistic, violent, and unhealthy message. Instead of being so quick to ban books, especially when considering the great literary mind we lost this year, we should try to help young people to become more critical readers and thinkers. Maybe we'll learn something also in the process.